Rock Steady Reggae Lunch

Table reservations from 12pm | Live Music: 1-3pm

'It was clear that Wayne had a very special talent, his voice was simply breathtaking' - Livemusic.fm

Wayne Hernandez has one of the more quietly extraordinary CVs in British music. He has sung with Gorillaz, toured with Kool and the Gang and Billy Ocean, performed alongside Tina Turner, Roberta Flack and Madonna, and fronted a 100-piece pan ensemble at the late Queen's Platinum Jubilee. He is also a long-standing member of the Kingdom Choir, who performed at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. For this Saturday lunch he turns to the music that Jamaica gave the world before reggae had a name.

The set covers the full arc of the tradition: rocksteady from Alton Ellis and The Techniques, ska from Desmond Dekker, reggae from Bob Marley's "Don't Rock My Boat" and The Melodians' "Rivers of Babylon", lovers rock from John Holt's "Help Me Make It Through the Night" and Dennis Brown's "Money in My Pocket" and international crossover via Jimmy Cliff's "Wonderful World, Beautiful People" and Cat Stevens' "Wild World" as rendered by Maxi Priest. This is a genuine survey of Jamaican music from the late 1960s through the 1980s, not a greatest hits medley.

The format suits the repertoire. Holt's catalogue in particular breathes better over a long lunch than it does in a two-hour evening concert, and Hernandez has the vocal range and control to move between the sweetness of lovers rock and the weight of roots without losing either. Boisdale marks Jamaican Independence Week with this lunch at its centre, a proper sit-down celebration of music that has been influencing everything around it for sixty years.

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